


Sunflower

by letme_follow



Category: The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-02-08 09:55:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21474106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letme_follow/pseuds/letme_follow
Summary: Will comforts Nico during his first night in the infirmary.
Relationships: Nico di Angelo/Will Solace
Comments: 3
Kudos: 101





	Sunflower

Nico walked back to Will Solace, feeling as if the entirety of the weight of the planet had been suddenly lifted off his shoulders. He could still hear Percy stuttering behind him as he put the pieces together, but that was far from his mind as he approached the son of Apollo. Nico had always believed that he would be mortified if he ever admitted his feelings aloud to Percy, but he was actually fairly relieved. Finally, another secret that he did not have to harbor alone any longer. 

“You look happy.” Will noted. 

Nico shrugged, although the slight upturn of his lips stayed in place as they both began to make their way to the infirmary. “I had to take care of something.” 

One of Will’s eyebrows rose in question, but Nico waved his hand dismissively. He would speak about it on his own time. 

When they made it to the infirmary, Will held the door open and gestured for him to go inside. Nico thought that the place would be packed with injured demigods, although it seemed rather quiet instead. Besides for a lone girl resting on a bed near the far wall, the room was empty.

“Where is everyone?” Nico asked.

Will squeezed by beside him and started rearranging medical supplies on a table. “A lot of campers decided to return to their cabins when they felt well enough to leave.” he said. He stopped to inspect a glass bottle of strange liquid. 

“It’s only been two days since the battle.” 

“You’d be surprised at what healers are capable of.” Will smiled and patted on the bed next to him. “Now, sit here.” 

Nico stood awkwardly inside the entryway. A hundred butterflies were swarming inside his stomach. “Are you sure that all of this is necessary? I’m okay, honest.” 

He knew that arguing was a lost cause when Will turned, one hand on his hip, eyes stern and determined. “You’re not okay.”

Nico threw his hands up in defeat. “Alright, alright.” 

He sat on the edge of the bed, running his fingers across the soft white blanket, lost in his thoughts. Why was Will so concerned about him? They had never interacted for long until recently. Nico had seen the son of Apollo from afar a couple of times, but he had never considered speaking to him. Besides, he was a loner. It was what he needed to be to survive. He knew all too well how other people felt about a son of Hades. It had damned him to a life of solitude the moment his sister had lost her life.

“So,” Will began, stethoscope in hand, “I’m going to take your vitals. It’s a necessary procedure.” 

With his stethoscope in one hand, he lifted the hem of Nico’s shirt and placed the head against his chest. Nico shivered, partly from the chill of the metal against his skin, mostly because Will Solace had his hands so close to his chest. Will, however, seemed oblivious to his patient’s discomfort. He moved the head of the stethoscope to different areas of his body, starting at one side of his pectorals and working his way across. While he listened, Nico averted his gaze and wondered if the moment would ever end. 

Finally, Will sighed and removed his stethoscope. “Your heart sounds a bit faint, but your bpm is somewhat normal.”

“That’s good, right?” Nico said. He tried to sound enthusiastic. 

Will shook his head, obviously bothered by something else. “I can feel the outline of your ribs. Have you been eating?” 

Nico’s heartbeat was hard and fast. “Well, um, my appetite sort of comes and goes.” 

“I guess all of that shadow traveling didn’t help.” 

Nico tried to ignore the guilt that washed over him, then he was angry at himself for feeling guilty. “Well, the statue had to get here somehow. I didn’t really have much time between sleeping and traveling to eat much.” he grumbled. 

Will crossed his arms, fixing him in place with his blue eyes. “No need to get defensive. I’m just saying that you need to eat more.” 

“Why do you care?” Nico blurted; his tone was harsher than he intended. 

Simply being around the son of Apollo put his emotions at an all-time high. But he knew as soon as he said it that he should have reconsidered. Will seemed taken aback by his question, possibly even hurt. 

“You’re so dense.” He tossed his clipboard onto the table in agitation. “I need to run out to check on a few patients at their cabins.” his shoulders slumped, as if all the fight had drained out of him. For the first time, Nico noticed that he looked exhausted. “Please, stay here and rest.” 

Will turned on his heel and left, the door slamming shut a bit more loudly than usual. 

Nico stared at his shoes in silence. 

\--

After waiting for hours, Nico laid his head against the pillow and dozed off. His dreams were the same as ever: painful memories of Bianca, smiling at him from under the shade of her floppy green hat, remnants of Tartarus that he was struggling to forget. He was drawn to them, and the dream shifted. He was curled up inside an empty jar, hugging his middle and shivering from the cold. The silence was eerie and abnormal; it made his ears ring. From his pocket, Nico fished for a single pomegranate seed and popped it into his mouth. The bitter taste made his face scrunch up in distaste. When he swallowed, sleep overcame him almost instantaneously. 

Then, he was in Tartarus, surrounded by monsters. They were egging each other on, proud and overconfident with a son of Hades finally in their grasp. Their voices were garbled and unnatural. Their words were indecipherable, and they grated against his eardrums, like nails against a chalk board. He pushed his hands against his ears, but he could still feel the reverberation of their voices. Their bodies were abominations; he felt his sanity cracking at the seams. Their crooked limbs reached for him. Nico squeezed his eyes shut tight and screamed.

He bolted upright in bed in a cold sweat. Tartarus melted away and was replaced with the white walls of the infirmary. The lights were dimmed, and night had fallen. 

“Are you okay?” 

Nico flinched, but it was only Will, sitting cross-legged in the bed right next to him. He had replaced his scrub shirt with a Camp Half Blood tee.

“What-?” Nico tried to speak, but his voice trembled. 

He was gripping the sheets like they were his only anchor to the real world. He cursed and hid his face in his hands, trying to focus on breathing. Instead, a choked sob racked his body. 

“Hey, it’s all right. I’m here.” Will’s gentle voice made Nico feel worse. He could feel something building inside his chest, clawing its way up his throat. The back of his eyes felt hot and watery. He tried desperately to hold it back.

Then, something broke inside of him. Nico sobbed into his hands; heart-wrenching, awful sobs that shook his whole body and made his nose run. His face was entirely wet with tears, and they didn’t stop. A dam had finally cracked and released all the raw anguish that he had kept at bay for years. Will wrapped his slender arms around his shoulders, whispering comforting words into his ear. Nico held onto them like a lifeline. 

After what seemed like forever, Nico calmed down. Will still held him in silence. At some point he had crawled up onto the bed beside him. 

Nico had expected to feel embarrassed, but he was grateful that Will stayed with him. “I’m sorry.” he said, at last. 

Will released his hold on him. “It’s okay.” 

His face was solemn. They sat shoulder to shoulder, skin against skin, but neither of them minded. The room was empty, besides for the two of them. Crickets chirped outside the windows, and campers laughed in the distance as they sang beside a campfire. It all felt far away; the night belonged to them and nothing else mattered.

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

Nico shook his head in response. He wasn’t the kind of person that talked things out. He dealt with things as they came and stored them away to think over later, when he was alone. His chest constricted at that thought. He was afraid of being alone again. 

He found himself leaning against Will for support, fighting to stay awake as exhaustion seeped into his bones. 

“You asked me why I cared.” Will said, his voice barely above a whisper. Nico glanced at him and was surprised to find him gazing back. Will’s lips unturned in the softest smile, “I like being around you.” 

Nico blinked, “You…like someone like me?” 

“I see you alone, all the time.” Will said, absently picking at a loose thread in the blanket. “And, I know that you’re used to being by yourself, but, if you give people a chance, I’m sure that things would be different.”

Nico stared after him as he pushed himself off the bed and stretched, so much like the lanky cat that Nico had often compared him to. Will rummaged through a small box of glass bottles on the medicine table before he picked one out. 

“Here,” he said, holding out the tiny bottle to Nico. “This is a draught for a dreamless sleep. It will probably knock you out pretty quickly.”

Nico took the bottle in silence, thoughtfully rolling it in his palm as Will watched him. The clear liquid inside sloshed back and forth. He screwed the lid off and downed the glass in one gulp. The medicine tasted sweet and familiar on his tongue. 

“Grape?” Nico guessed.

Will laughed, “Yeah, it’s not necessary, but we try to make our medications taste a bit palatable. It helps with patient compliance, at least.” 

Nico stared at the empty bottle in his hand, as if it held a thousand answers within it. He set it on the bedside table and leaned back into the pillows. Finally, he came to a decision. He inhaled deeply in an attempt to calm his frayed nerves.

“I-I like you, too.” he admitted, and he knew that the words held true. 

Since the battle, Will had made him feel funny skeletal butterflies in his stomach. He was the only person in camp that did not wilt under his gaze when he was angry, and Nico had found himself oddly disappointed when Jason had shown up to his cabin instead of Will that morning. He had been actively searching for the son of Apollo over the last two days, hoping against hope that he would see him again. He had even worried and lost sleep over what Will thought of him during that long period of silence after Octavian’s suicide.

He felt the same way he had when he was younger, when Percy Jackson had unknowingly stolen his heart. But, this time, it was different. It was stronger.

Will smiled, but he didn’t say anything further. Nico was grateful for that. He wasn’t sure if he could talk about something so sensitive to him without getting more flustered. Will climbed back into the bed opposite of Nico and laid down facing him. 

Nico eyed him warily, but Will just rolled his eyes.

“What kind of doctor would I be if I didn’t watch over my patient?” 

They both knew that it was a flimsy excuse. Will tried to hide his smirk in the pillow, but Nico found himself smiling too. He closed his eyes as the sleeping draught’s effects took hold. His mind clouded over in darkness, but the usual dreams did not come to haunt him. 

Nico slept peacefully that night, knowing that Will would still be there in the morning. 

\--

At dawn, neither of them talked about what had happened the night before. They acknowledged it in small gestures: the way Will’s fingers would linger on his skin, the sly smiles and quick glimpses that they shared when they thought no one else was looking. The infirmary was lively with campers stopping by to receive examinations, a stipulation that Will had set when they had insisted on returning to their cabins. A few of Will’s brothers and sisters came to help.

Nico watched him work as he darted around the room. He noticed that Will had a way of speaking with his hands that was very expressive. He smiled with everyone and seemed to radiate a cheery aura that affected them, too. When something was amiss, Will knit his eyebrows together in concern and pursed his lips in thought. He tapped his pen against his clipboard and recorded each patient’s vitals before determining if their health was improving. 

Many campers came in with bloody bandages that needed replaced, while some were limping on crutches. The luckier ones only had a few smiley face band aids here and there. Nico revised his previous thoughts of the Apollo children; they worked together like a well-oiled machine. He was sure that, without them, the casualties from the battle would have been entirely worse. 

When all was said and done, Will rejoined him. He pulled a chair up by the bed and plopped down. 

“Phew,” he sighed. “What a morning. How are you feeling?”

A shock of electricity shot up Nico’s spine, but he crossed his arms and tried to pin Will with his best glare. “I’m dying in here. Can I at least go out for a little while?” 

He was getting jittery, staying in one place. He fidgeted with the skull ring on his finger, an anxious habit that he had picked up years ago. Although he tried his best to hide his feelings, Nico suspected that he wore his emotions on his sleeve fairly openly. Especially around Will Solace, who seemed to bring everything out of him.

“Sure, but I have to stay with you the entire time.” 

“Deal.” Nico agreed, sliding off his cot. 

Together they set outside with no particular direction in mind.


End file.
